Saturday, November 30, 2013

(apologies about the mental coloured writing on this - Blogger seems to be misbehaving .. or more likely I don't know how to work it properly!)

This year I think .. no wait .. I KNOW I have won more stuff than any other year in my life. I have taken on the 'you've gotta be in it to win it' mentality and it seems to have paid off. I guess when I think of how many things I have entered it's not surprising to have won SOMETHING but I think I have been extra blessed this year (and able to bless others by it which is awesome).

One of the very best things I have won though is a voucher for The Bach Beauty Therapy. I was SO stoked it was SUPER generous of the lovely Olivia (The Bach owner) and Jackie over at Jacksta B who ran the competition.

I redeemed part of my voucher today and got a full body massage. OH.MY.HEAVENLY!! I so super recommend this place!! It was super relaxing and it doesn't just stop there.

She does waxing, manicures, pedicures, facials and more!!

She's got her own special little room with an off-street park and it has been done up BEAUTIFULLY! Here is the price list

(hopefully you can click on it to zoom in?)

So if you're stuck for Christmas presents this year she's even got a special offer on for December:

Give and you shall receive! For every $50 spent on a Gift voucher from now until Christmas, you will receive $10 credit for yourself.

Remember to spread the word!

Recommend someone to The Bach, and get pampered with a complimentary hand or foot treatment!

What a deal! So book your place in now and get all waxed and ready for the beach and grab a massage while you're there - they really are divine!

Friday, November 22, 2013

So I just realised that whilst I did post pics on FB, I forgot to blog about the quilt I finished! (I'm pretty good at not blogging about things .. oops!)

Anyway here is the end result. I am pretty stoked with it (and tempted to keep it hehe .. don't worry, I won't!)

I think actually the reason why I am so happy is because my Mum said the quilting was 'Beautiful' and that she has been trying for years to be able to quilt like this :-) Well she can sure take most the credit since pretty much everything about quilting I learned from her! (and the internet hehe)

Friday, November 15, 2013

It's been a while! So to take my mind off the fact that I'm melting in a heap with hayfever today I thought I'd do a quick blurb about this cake I made yesterday!

There wasn't any birthday to have the excuse to make a cake and I really felt like eating chocolate cake so I made one 'just because'.

It turned out DELICIOUS! :-) Yusss (waaaay better than the disgusting peanut butter slice/cake thing I made the other day, half of which is still sitting in the pantry and really needs to go in the compost now!)

Here's the nice cake anyway ...

I had a recipe for a mud cake from my Mum's friend which you can either cook as one cake, or 2, and then put filling in the middle. I wasn't sure what to put in the middle but thought some jam would be nice. Unfortunately we didn't have enough jam so I concocted my own jam/conserve/jellyish stuff and it turned out really nice! All I did was put 1 can of apricots (including the juice) and one cup of white sugar in a pot. I brought this to a boil and then turned it down to simmer (whilst stirring occasionally). Near the end it does need to be stirred pretty much constantly so it doesn't catch on the bottom and burn. You know when it's done when you drop a drip onto a plate and when you tip the plate, it doesn't dribble down the plate.

Anyway, here is the mud cake recipe and you can choose to do whatever filling you like! (I'm assuming it would probably work with peaches or other fruit too??)

Chocolate Mud Cake Recipe:

MIX:

2c sugar

1 3/4c flour

3/4c cocoa

1 1/2tsp Baking Powder

1 1/2tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp salt

MIX (separately):

2 eggs

1/2c oil (I used coconut, but you can use any)

3tsp vanilla essence

1c milk

COMBINE the 2 mixtures together with 1c boiling water.

Cook : 2 tins for 35min@ 160 Celsius

or: 1 tin for 1hr@ 160 Celsius

I made simple butter icing for the top. (softened butter/icing sugar/drops of water to mix)

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Today I managed to make a dinosaur suit for my nephew for Christmas. I'm trying to get on top of the Christmas presents now so we don't end up with a huge bill and manic Christmas Shopping at the end of the year! So now I've managed to pin down 3 Christmas Presents :-)

I'll show you here the finished product and if you want to know how to make it then keep reading (I hope I make sense in this tutorial! I really was just flying by the seat of my pants so feel free to adjust anything to make yours even better!)

small amount of fabric for binding and neck attachment bit (this is not mandatory either)

1x 30cm square of felt (I got mine from Arthurs for $1.50) which you cut into triangles.

Method:

1. Cut 2x wings - one left one, one right one in the shape as you see below .. just make up how big you want it depending on the child .. I was just copying off a suit I already had, but making it larger.

2. pin down the outside of the wing (right sides together) and sew

3. pin what you've sewn open and top stitch it flat. Now you should have 2 wings like the picture below

4. Now you need to cut the hood pieces .. mine could have done with being a little big larger (hence why I added binding to the front .. to make it a little bit bigger) .. cut 2x liner pieces, and I actually cut 4x sparkly hood bits to make the hood a little bit more sparkly.

5. fold the straight edge of the hood in half and about halfway up put a pin in so you can sew a tuck. This should help the hood curve around the head better.

6. Pin all the layers of the hood in the correct order, right sides together and sew. Now your hood should look like the pic below. At this stage I would try it on the child (or in my case, a similar sized child) and adjust if it needs it. Now you are ready to put the spikes on.

NOTE: You could add the spikes by pinning them inside the layers at the start of number 6. I would do that next time around, but it does hold it well if you just unpick spaces for the spikes afterwards

7. Fold a little tuck on a spike (it stays pretty well with felt). Sit the spike on the hood to see how much you have to unpick (if you haven't put them in already) and then unpick enough for it to fit in between the layers, pin, and sew.

Do this for all the hood spikes .. mine fitted 4 on.

8. Now add some elastic on the tips of the wings to go around the child's wrist. Double fold the top of the wing, encapsulating the elastic and sew right along the top of the wing.

9. Go over the elastic a few times to hold it in place.

10. Make some binding for the front of the hood. This just means cutting a strip of fabric and ironing it in half.

11. Pin binding to the front of the hood, and sew.

12. Fold and pin flat and top stitch.

13. See pic for inside view of what it should look like.

NOTE: If you didn't want to do the binding, just fold over the front of the hood double and sew - I only didn't do this because my hood was too small to do that (and it turned out quite nice anyway!)

NOTE#2: If you buy binding - or make binding so that you cut a strip, fold the edges together, then fold it in half - you could put this over the front of the hood and make it look tidy from both sides .. I only just thought of this now oops! haha

14. Sew the 'spine' of the wings together at the top just a little bit - about 3cm down

15. Pin the hood onto the wings and sew. See pic below as to what it should look like now.

16. Now sew the rest of the spikes (with a tuck folded in them) down the spine. I pinned all the spine including the spikes and did it in one go

17. use 2x equilateral triangles (triangles with 3 sides the same length) and put the either side of the tail and top stitch all around the edge to hold it on and togther.

18. If you want you can add a strap for around the front of the neck (which is handy if the hood is off so it doesn't fall off). You could add ties or velcro but I used a button for mine - I made a strap out of binding material (please excuse bad button hold sewing!!).

19. Now you're done! Pat yourself on the back :-)

20. get recipient or willing model to wear it and post about it on your blog!

I hope that was helpful .. feel free to ask questions and feel free to share this tutorial :-)

Monday, October 7, 2013

You may recall a while back I was nominated by someone for the Munch Best Kids Food Blog?

Well the time has come to cast your vote! (actually it's been open since the 4th of Oct - and results are known 1st Nov)

So .. if you feel like you'd like to vote for me that would be awesome!

When I started out this blog I didn't intend it to be a food blog particularly, but it seems that food is a major part of my life .. and I guess since I'm cooking for my kids it's become a kid's food blog! I hope it has encouraged you, and given you some tips and tricks to help!

Voting is at this site under 'Best Kid's Food Blog' .. look for SimaJ :-)